The Watchmen on the Walls Protect Homo-Hating Killers
Last night my very good friend Corrine called me and mentioned off hand something about a man being murdered at a local park for being gay. What?
I guess it happened back in July and it was also a case of mistaken identity. It seems that there was a group of Russian immigrants at Lake Natoma and also a group of Indians and Fijians at the same park. Among the Fijians was a man named Satender Singh. He and his friends had been celebrating his recent promotion at this park and were spotted dancing and hugging by the Russians. These other men found it offensive and they first told their wives to take the children home before they confronted Singh and his friends for an apology for inappropriate behavior and “…called for several more Slavic men on their cell phones”. At one point one of the Russians had said ‘…they belonged to a Russian evangelical church and that he should go to a “good church” like theirs…’.
Sadly, one of the men threw beer in Singh’s face and ‘sucker punched’ him, he fell over and hit his head. This act sent Singh to the hospital and he was treated for internal bleeding, later that night he lapsed into a coma and then died as a result of his injuries. A de facto death sentence for dancing and hugging among men. It makes me sad.
What makes me so very sad is that as I child I [as many of you] grew up with the propaganda of the Evil Iron Curtain. There were plenty of stories of these horrible Russian people who had no appreciation for life, they wanted to convert us all to Communism, and that their women were ugly. Thankfully I had parents who raised me to have a baloney tester. Yes I feared the nukes, but ours as well as theirs. Yes, I felt sad for those who wanted to leave and were kept back by walls and barbed wire. Yes, I believed that the gulags existed and that people feared for their safety for having religious beliefs, but I did not believe that it was inherent in the Russian person. As with any government, I believed it was more the want of those in power to keep it.
Now it seems, some of those who have left this country behind to come to the US may have not shed their need to have an enemy. Last night I read of an organization called eerily enough “The Watchmen on the Walls". A group of Latvian and Russian evangelicals who have proclaimed that “God has ‘made an injection’ of anti-gay Slavic evangelicals into liberal West Coast cities, adding ‘In places where the disease is progressing, God has made a divine penicillin.’” How sad.
It is sad to me that the name harkens back to Cold War icon of oppression and the members embrace that oppression. Irony, irony, irony. I remember the photos of people attempting to escape, pushing themselves through barbed wire in a desperate attempt to find a place where they can live freely. Though I guess we all know that we are not truly free here. I wonder if they see that they are reproducing that same oppressive image?
I’m still astounded at the verve for hate toward non-heterosexuals. I understand that hate for a group is never based on logic, but I can’t get over the blind belief that it is so evil that a life should be treated with such disdain. And under the auspices of a religion started by a prophet [or Son] who said ‘turn the other cheek’, ‘let he who has not sinned throw the first stone’, ‘blessed are the peace-makers’, ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ and likely more that I do not know.
I will be vigilant with regard to engaging those who have the mistaken idea that the sin of homosexuality is any greater than the sin of shellfish, disrespecting parents, wearing clothes of mixed fiber, or touching a woman on her period. The challenge is to not see them as so evil that their life is less valuable than any other life, which for the most part I have down, but sometimes when people are murdered, it is tough to convince myself of it.
I guess it happened back in July and it was also a case of mistaken identity. It seems that there was a group of Russian immigrants at Lake Natoma and also a group of Indians and Fijians at the same park. Among the Fijians was a man named Satender Singh. He and his friends had been celebrating his recent promotion at this park and were spotted dancing and hugging by the Russians. These other men found it offensive and they first told their wives to take the children home before they confronted Singh and his friends for an apology for inappropriate behavior and “…called for several more Slavic men on their cell phones”. At one point one of the Russians had said ‘…they belonged to a Russian evangelical church and that he should go to a “good church” like theirs…’.
Sadly, one of the men threw beer in Singh’s face and ‘sucker punched’ him, he fell over and hit his head. This act sent Singh to the hospital and he was treated for internal bleeding, later that night he lapsed into a coma and then died as a result of his injuries. A de facto death sentence for dancing and hugging among men. It makes me sad.
What makes me so very sad is that as I child I [as many of you] grew up with the propaganda of the Evil Iron Curtain. There were plenty of stories of these horrible Russian people who had no appreciation for life, they wanted to convert us all to Communism, and that their women were ugly. Thankfully I had parents who raised me to have a baloney tester. Yes I feared the nukes, but ours as well as theirs. Yes, I felt sad for those who wanted to leave and were kept back by walls and barbed wire. Yes, I believed that the gulags existed and that people feared for their safety for having religious beliefs, but I did not believe that it was inherent in the Russian person. As with any government, I believed it was more the want of those in power to keep it.
Now it seems, some of those who have left this country behind to come to the US may have not shed their need to have an enemy. Last night I read of an organization called eerily enough “The Watchmen on the Walls". A group of Latvian and Russian evangelicals who have proclaimed that “God has ‘made an injection’ of anti-gay Slavic evangelicals into liberal West Coast cities, adding ‘In places where the disease is progressing, God has made a divine penicillin.’” How sad.
It is sad to me that the name harkens back to Cold War icon of oppression and the members embrace that oppression. Irony, irony, irony. I remember the photos of people attempting to escape, pushing themselves through barbed wire in a desperate attempt to find a place where they can live freely. Though I guess we all know that we are not truly free here. I wonder if they see that they are reproducing that same oppressive image?
I’m still astounded at the verve for hate toward non-heterosexuals. I understand that hate for a group is never based on logic, but I can’t get over the blind belief that it is so evil that a life should be treated with such disdain. And under the auspices of a religion started by a prophet [or Son] who said ‘turn the other cheek’, ‘let he who has not sinned throw the first stone’, ‘blessed are the peace-makers’, ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ and likely more that I do not know.
I will be vigilant with regard to engaging those who have the mistaken idea that the sin of homosexuality is any greater than the sin of shellfish, disrespecting parents, wearing clothes of mixed fiber, or touching a woman on her period. The challenge is to not see them as so evil that their life is less valuable than any other life, which for the most part I have down, but sometimes when people are murdered, it is tough to convince myself of it.